Single-shot, reference-less computational wavefront sensing for complex optical fields.

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Computational Imaging

Background:

• Optical wavefront characterization is crucial for various scientific and industrial applications.
• Current wavefront sensing methods face limitations in spatiotemporal resolution, compactness, and versatility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel computational wavefront sensing approach named Spatial And Fourier-domAin Regularized Inversion (SAFARI).
• To enable single-shot, reference-less characterization of complex optical wavefronts.

Main Methods:

• SAFARI leverages intrinsic physical properties like smoothness for wavefront reconstruction.
• A compact, diffuser-based wavefront sensor was employed for experimental validation.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated single-shot, reference-less characterization of complex wavefronts.
• Successfully reconstructed wavefronts with up to 200 Zernike modes, topological charges of 150, and over 190,000 spatial modes in speckle fields.

Conclusions:

• SAFARI offers high versatility and performance comparable to or exceeding state-of-the-art techniques.
• The proposed method is a promising tool for advanced coherent imaging and sensing applications.